


Vampire in the Corn

by theashemarie



Series: Holidays Without You [1]
Category: Splatoon
Genre: F/F, First Meetings, Halloween, Haunted Houses, Human AU, I missed bones so much thank god I get to use ribs again I am REBORN, POV Marina, Rating for Cursing, Scare Actor Pearl, because Pearl is an unstoppable swear monster, corn maze, request from @ayythedragon on twitter!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-31
Updated: 2019-11-05
Packaged: 2021-01-15 20:46:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,613
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21259400
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theashemarie/pseuds/theashemarie
Summary: "Honestly, if Marina wasn’t so upset, she’d find it intriguing, interesting, almost endearing, that Pearl isn't mad about being punched, especially because Pearl seems like someone who’s used to stuff like this. After all, she’s spending her Halloween scaring the heck out of people."Marina, dragged along to a haunted corn maze, meets Pearl, a scare actor, in the worst way possible: after she loses her cool, she punches her right in the face.[Human AU]





	1. Giggling Monsters

**Author's Note:**

> [Suggestion from @ayythedragon on Twitter:](https://twitter.com/ayythedragon/status/1183950244242960384) "Human AU, Pearl is a scare actor at a local Haunted House, and she spooks Marina, whose been dragged along by a couple friends. Marina punches Pearl instinctively. You wont believe what happens Next" 
> 
> This fic has been a bit of an adventure for me, mostly because I decided to make this not only the request, but the beginning of a series of oneshots/twoshots in a long distance relationship AU, and I wrote it in like three days...
> 
> *This goes without saying, but PLEASE don't punch scare actors. Keep your hands to yourself and don't harm others.

It’s Halloween and the haunted corn maze is packed. Marina, already jumpy because this corn maze is familiar to her in a bad way, follows her oldest friends through the crowd and every brush against her sweatered arms feels like sandpaper. She draws her arms as close to her body as she can and keeps her head down, trying to seem interested as her friends’ chatter about the theme—something to do with vampires and their nest—and buy tickets and snoop around the food booths. The truth is that she’d rather be anywhere but here, but she doesn’t get to see these friends often, only about two times a year, and she wants to maximize their time. Plus, they come here every year, much to Marina’s chagrin; it’s a tradition.

So, she buys herself an apple cider and follows her friends into the corn maze, hoping that the drink will keep her distracted. For a while, it works. She wraps her hands tight around the warm cup and sips at it, feels her fingers tighten when scare actors jump out at her, snarling. There are vampires, zombies, more vampires, ghostly-white kids, vampire children, the whole nine yards, all dressed in tattered clothes with fake blood and make-up painting their bodies. Her friends squeal and skitter away, clutching each other, and then laugh at their own fear. Marina, meanwhile, merely stiffens and shuffles on. The wind ruffles the corn, causes it to ripple into waves, and that makes her stiffen too. She’s never quite sure when a scare actor is going to jump out at her, but she tries to keep it cool, for her own sake.

The layout of the maze is different every year, which doesn’t help Marina’s jumpiness. Usually, she leads the pack when they make their way through, but her friends don’t like that, claim she’s a buzzkill, so this time she’s staying behind, shuffling her feet, trying not to say anything at all. She’s intimately familiar with this land because of how often she’s been here, and because of what happened when she was younger—she got lost here once, so hopelessly lost that she curled up in a ball in the corner and tried to disappear, hiding her face in her knees, even as cries of the terrified and the terrorizers flew over her head. She sat there for hours, tense, too scared to move, crying quietly, until a pale woman dressed in a ripped white dress found her and carried her out, returned her to her panicking friends and father. She didn’t sleep for two weeks after that and coming back here transports her all the way back to that time, where she’s helpless and panicked and can’t think, where she’s nothing but a ball of instincts with just a cup of apple cider to anchor her.

Until, her friends break away from the main pack, following a fork in the road toward a dead end. Marina, who had memorized the map at a glance, knows they’re wrong, but she doesn’t want to ruin their fun. So, she follows them toward the dead end, convinced that they’ll just have to turn around and trek back, disappointed by the lack of scares. There’s no way they would put a scare actor so far out of the way, and the tension of venturing into an isolated, out-of-the-way place is enough of a fright. In fact—

“_GAAAAAH!” _It is precisely at this moment that a tiny form dives out of the corn with a loud yell, right next to Marina. It’s so loud that Marina feels it rattle through her skull and the cup falls from her fingers. Her body, hard reset, reacts before she can stop it, and her arm flies out, hand curled into a fist. It makes contact with bone and cartilage, and she feels something crunch under her knuckles.

“Fuck!” cries a high-pitched voice, and for a second Marina is convinced that she just punched out a child, especially because, when she finally manages to focus, she sees the scare actor in all her glory—tattered, bright pink dress covered in ruffles, just like the dresses Marina remembers the little Catholic girls wearing as they made their way to church every Sunday, scuffed, patent leather shoes, long blonde hair tied into two pigtails with two big, pink bows. But then she realizes that the dress is also covered with fake blood and the girl has a pair of giant fangs in her mouth.

“Jesus _Christ_!” the girl continues, pulling her hand away from her nose. There’s real blood on it, Marina realizes with a jolt.

“Oh... oh my god! I’m so sorry!” Marina drops down to her knees, reaching out with helpless hands, but doesn’t want to touch her again without permission. “Did I break your nose?”

“Did you— No! That was a mean right hook, but my nose is a badder bitch than that. Why the hell did you _punch_ me?”

Okay, so this is probably _not _a child, just going by the language. Plus, Marina is starting to recognize the curves and facial features of an adult the more she watches the girl—woman—vampiress?—prod at her nose. She moves with sure, practiced movements, as if she’s accustomed to pain.

“I—” Marina pulls her sweater’s long sleeves over her fingers, trying to hide in it as well as she can. “You scared me.”

The woman in girl’s clothing shoots her an astonished, baleful glance. “I _scared_ you... This is a haunted corn maze! What’d you expect? God, they warned us about this but _fucking Christ_ I didn’t expect it to _actually_ happen! Where’d you learn to punch like that?”

Marina looks down at her hands. She doesn’t answer.

“Look— You need to get outta here. I gotta— _Shit_, there’s people coming! C’mon!”

Suddenly, Marina feels herself yanked up to her feet and dragged, stumbling, into the corn. The scare actor makes a shushing gesture and motions her down into a crouch so that she’s hidden. Just beyond the edge of the crops, she can hear another group of people venture too close, and the scare actor leaps out of the corn, snarling. This time, the people scream and jerk away, then laugh at themselves as the girl retreats back into the corn.

After they leave, Marina’s new acquaintance looks back at her. “It’s clear now. You can go. Don’t punch anyone else.”

Marina moves to stand, but then realizes, with a jolt, that there’s still blood dripping out of the girl’s nose. “You’re bleeding...”

A pale hand comes up and brushes against the offending liquid. “Huh, guess so. Oh well, it adds to the costume. Get out of here.”

Marina scuffs her foot against the ground. “But I punched you.” And her friends are gone, she’s realizing now. But that doesn’t matter, not really. She can always find them again. What does matter is that she needs to make it up to this stranger somehow. You don’t just punch someone and _leave_...

“Not the first time a cute girl’s punched me. I’ll live. You _really_ gotta go.”

“But... Listen, let me buy you dinner or something. What time do you get off?” Marina knows that she’s pleading with a guilty voice, but she can’t just leave. Her conscience won’t let her; plus, there’s something about this scare actor that intrigues her—maybe it’s her apparent familiarity with pain and bloody noses or her rough attitude and language, but Marina can’t just walk away—not now.

“Are you... Am I really being _asked out_ after being _punched_?”

“What? _No!_ I need to make up for _punching you_.”

“Oh... Well, I mean, I won’t say no to free food. I get off at eleven.”

That’s three hours from now. Marina sighs and settles back onto her haunches. “Fine. I’ll wait.”

“You’ll... _what_? Girl, you’re _crazy_.” She peers at Marina with small, squinted eyes, and Marina stares back, trying to seem steadfast and serious. She must see something intriguing in Marina’s face, because she merely wipes her nose, smearing the blood, and looks away. “Fine. Just stay quiet, I guess?”

“Fine. I don’t like this stuff anyway,” Marina says, falling back onto her backside and pulling her knees into her chest. She and the scare actor are currently occupying a small square cut into the corn, probably so that the actors can breathe between jumps. It’s an interesting idea—this small pocket of freedom, surrounded by tall, withery stalks, their heads not yet grown in. “I don’t wanna accidentally hurt anyone else if I get startled too bad.” Then, her manners get the better of her and she adds, “I’m Marina, by the way.”

“I’m Pearl, and I gotta go. Stay down.”

Pearl doesn’t leap out this time, merely leans her head out and says in her highest, creepiest voice, “Mommy... Have you seen my mommy?”

As a girl yells and jumps to hide behind her boyfriend, Marina leans back and tries to make herself comfortable, ignoring how relieved she feels now that she doesn’t have to work her way through the rest of the maze.

+++

A half hour passes, during which Pearl casts curious, probing glances in Marina’s direction. Marina, for her part, sits still and quiet, staring out at the corn with far away eyes. She’s trying to stay calm because there’s a slight breeze and the swaying corn is freaking her out. Plus, Pearl’s outfit is a bit disquieting, especially when she pulls out the little girl shtick, and the screams of her victims are quickly worming under Marina’s skin. Staying here was probably a bad idea, but where else would she go? She’d have to hang out around the maze anyway, probably just as freaked out. At least here no one will see her except this stranger in a costume.

“You good?” Pearl asks between scares, about forty minutes into the three hours Marina has to wait. She kneels carefully next to Marina, her short dress pooling against her knees, and reaches a hand out carefully to touch her shoulder. It’s a ballsy move, especially because Marina just punched her, but Marina doesn’t react, just breathes out quietly through her nose.

“I’m fine,” she says into the ripped fabric of her jeans.

“You don’t look fine.”

Marina looks at her then. In the dark, with only the lights of the path filtering through the corn to illuminate them, Pearl’s features are almost indistinguishable. Marina can only make out her eyes, small and squinted, a golden brown, and the shape of her nose. Otherwise, she’s a blank slate. Still, the squint of her eyes is concerned, and Marina can imagine the line of her mouth, pulled tight in worry.

“I—” Marina sighs and looks away again. “I hate this maze.”

Pearl’s hand falls away. “Then why are you here?”

Marina shrugs. “My friends like it. We come every year.”

“Your friends make you come every year even though you don’t like it? Dude, they _suck_— Oh, I’ll be right back.”

Pearl disappears and Marina sees her shadow, backlit by the lamps on the path, move through the corn, pushing it aside as she creeps up on a group of boys, no older than fifteen. She steps out behind them, and follows them a way, until one of them turns around at the dead end. He lets out a shrill, voice-cracking shriek, and his friends follow suit. Pearl lets out a loud cackle, says a nonsense line about getting lost, and dives back into the corn before they can completely recover.

As they rush away, Pearl pushes her way back to their little clear-cut square. She doesn’t kneel again, just stands over Marina like... Well, like a small vampire, with her arms crossed over her chest, all her weight on her right leg.

“Where’d you learn to punch like that, anyway?” Pearl says, voice hushed. “You gotta teach me.”

It’s such a normal thing, said around the fangs in her mouth, that Marina almost forgets where they are for a second. Then, she hears a scream nearby and stiffens up again.

“We’re not friends,” Marina says, mumbling into her knees again.

“Ah, the night is young. We still have over two hours.” Pearl laughs and reaches up to adjust her hair. Marina realizes, a bit belatedly, that she clearly has a wig on her head, and she moves the whole thing to the side, re-centering it.

“I _punched_ you,” Marina says, finally looking up, just so she can pin Pearl with a disbelieving stare.

“Pfft, I already forgot about that. Like I said, you’re not the first.” Pearl waves a nonchalant hand. “Besides, you’re interesting. You punched me and then you just sat your ass down right there even though you clearly hate it here. Some moral compass you got there, if making it up to me trumps your own comfort. There’s not a lotta people out there like that.”

Marina sighs and looks back at the corn in front of her. “Maybe so, but I made you bleed when you were just doing your job. That’s... That was bad of me.”

“You freaked,” Pearl says, and her hand lands right back on Marina’s shoulder. “You shouldn’t have come out here, but at least you punched _me_ and not someone else. I can take it. Hey— Hang on.” She cuts off and her hand disappears. Marina hears her shuffle through the corn again.

Marina pulls her legs tighter into her chest, wondering how her evening has come to this. Just three hours ago she was at home, crawling into her tightest jeans and her biggest sweater, staring at herself in the mirror and telling herself that she wouldn’t let her irrational, childhood fear get to her. She wasn’t going to ruin it for her friends, she told herself, and she was going to enjoy herself. She was going to _get over this_— Nothing could hurt her in the corn; nothing could get her; they were all actors, and the shadows that creeped up on her weren’t real.

Now though, here she is, curled into the tightest ball she can manage, the button of her jeans digging painfully into her stomach, shoulders ratcheted up to her ears, because she lost her cool and straight up punched someone. And, that someone isn’t even mad at her—that’s the worst part. She _wants_ Pearl to be angry at her, because that’ll justify how angry she is at herself, layered under all the fear, but Pearl won’t give her that. In fact, it almost seems like she thinks it’s _cool_ that Marina decked her, which is so... Honestly, if Marina wasn’t so upset, she’d find it intriguing, interesting, almost endearing, especially because Pearl seems like someone who’s used to stuff like this. After all, she’s spending her Halloween scaring the piss out of people.

She probably could just leave. Just get up and wade back to the path, head out the way she came or ask for an emergency exit, but the truth is that she _does_ feel bad and she _does_ want to make it up to Pearl. Sure, she wants Pearl to be mad at her, but she also really does want to set things right. And she doesn’t know if she’ll be able to stick around the maze if she leaves this small, safe spot with its small, safe vampire scare actor. She won’t be able to stomach hanging out here once she gets moving again.

When Pearl returns, two more scares under her belt, Marina hasn’t moved, but Marina says something before she can.

“I shouldn’t be here, huh?” Marina mutters as she picks at a frayed string on her jeans. “You could get in trouble.”

“Eh.” Pearl waves a hand again, as if waving away any sort of trouble. “Tonight’s the last night and you’re being quiet. It’s not like you have your phone out. That’d be like a fuckin’ beacon. Besides, it’s nice to have some company. It’s exhausting, doing all this scaring, even here in a dead end where only like half of the people come. You’re keeping me awake!”

That actually makes Marina smile. As if Pearl needs anyone to keep her awake—she’s bouncing around like the undead, energetic child that she’s dressed up as, screeching with a voice that seems to never tire of the loud, high pitches that it rises to.

Immediately, one of Pearl’s hands fly out and point right at Marina. “A_ha_! I knew it! I knew you could smile!”

That makes her smile wider still and suddenly Marina is laughing, almost hysterical, as the stress of the last few hours catches up with her. She lets it take her, loud and from the pit of her stomach, and Pearl grins at her, vampire fangs on full display.

“Oh god... I’m... I’m sorry,” Marina breathes as she finally comes down, breathing heavily. “I’m just... I’m a mess.” She buries her hands in her face.

“Girl, what better place to be a mess than in the middle of a fuckin’ haunted house? You fit right in with all us bastards hiding in this fuckin’ corn. In fact...” She leans close and drops her voice to a whisper, as if they’re coconspirators in a grand scheme. “You wanna help me out? There’s literally no better way to get out stress than to scare some poor, innocent people. They’re asking for it and you have pent up energy. Let’s put it to good use!”

Marina feels herself loosen up from her ball. She has no idea why, but Pearl’s affable, rowdy energy is infectious, and she can feel it breaking through the barrier her fear erected. Swept up, she lets go of her knees.

That’s all Pearl needs to see. She grabs Marina’s arm and pulls her up, surprising Marina with her strength, and grins at her. “I have the perfect job for you. C’mon.”

+++

Marina finds herself stationed a few yards up the path, with only a row or two of corn between her and her victims. Because she’s not in a costume, she can’t show her face or be seen, but that doesn’t matter. When anyone heads her way, she’s been instructed, she’s to rustle the corn and make “creepy noises”—nothing too loud or scary, but enough to frighten or send curious people further up the path. Then, Pearl will jump out and hit them with the real scare.

She’s a little jumpy the first time, inexperienced and all, and also still terrified of this corn, especially away from her little square of safety, so she blows it a little. She can’t get her voice to work and ends up croaking when she tries to whisper-sing something toward the path. The small group of teens doesn’t notice her, and she almost gives up, but then she sees Pearl, just ahead of her, almost completely hidden by the corn, miming a shaking action. Marina squints at her and then realizes what she means.

Marina walks down the row, putting on foot in front of the other like she’s on a balance beam, and runs her hand along the corn, making it ripple in a way that’s clearly not natural. She hears a yelp from the path and Pearl motions her faster. Carefully, Marina speeds up so that she’s almost at a full jog. “What the hell was that?” she hears a voice ask, followed by a shushing sound. Marina shoves a little harder at the corn, causing a bigger ripple than before. “There it is!” a different voice cries.

Meanwhile, Pearl begins to laugh, a spine-chilling, high-pitched amalgamation of the possessed and a sweet little girl, something so practiced and controlled that, for a second, Marina forgets where she is. She’s transported out of the corn and back to the path, where she knows the teens have come to a stop—she can see them—terrified, looking around, trying to pinpoint where that ungodly, loud, chiming laugh must be coming from. Pearl has the uncanny ability to throw her voice around, even out here in this acoustic nightmare of an environment, and Marina’s trained ear easily identifies the voice of a fellow singer. Somewhere in the back of her unpanicked, logic brain, she feels something click into place, something that she’ll have to address later.

“_Where are you going_?” Pearl calls toward the teens, in her highest, breathiest voice, as soon as Marina lands next to her. The corn sways lightly behind her, unaffected and unconcerned with these shenanigans, correcting itself so that it may continue its slow crawl toward the sky. She sends Marina a bright, toothy smile around her fangs, around the blood and tattered dress, and it’s so cheery that Marina’s brain almost short circuits at the dissonance.

“_I just want to play... Will you be my toys?_” Pearl calls again, falling back into character. She moves away, stepping over the rows, pushing the corn aside, and Marina sees the teens turn to look in the direction of her voice. They’re all bundled up now, clutching to each other for safety, with the boys in front in some teenaged bravado contest, and they watch, with eyes as wide as the moon, as Pearl giggles again and launches herself out of the corn at them.

They screech, all six of them, and streak away, still in their small clutch of hands and legs, heads covered in beanies, letterman jackets pulled tight. “Fuck this, Jerry!” a girl yells. Pearl and Marina watch them go, from their different spots in the corn, and, when they’re out of earshot, Marina finally lets loose again. She laughs, deep from her gut, and tries to keep quiet because she knows there’s got to be more people coming. But, she can’t help it. _God_ that felt good.

“Told you.” Pearl appears next to her, looking smug. “Let’s go again. This time, can you laugh like I did? I wanna trick ‘em. Make ‘em think that there’s a lot of us out here.”

Marina coughs because that laugh was hard and the cold air is ripping up her throat, but she feels like she’s jostled something loose now. She nods once. “I’ll do my best.”

+++

The giggles work perfectly. Marina crouches halfway up the path between the dead end and the corner that they must turn to come this way, and once they pass she waits approximately seven seconds before cupping her hands around her mouth and letting out her loudest, silliest giggle, the kind of giggle that you’d expect out of a two year old getting the best birthday present of their life. It always makes the maze explorers jump, makes them curse, makes them rush further down the path toward Pearl, who’s waiting just inside the corn. As they move, Pearl begins her own giggles, projecting them out with that super voice of hers. They seem to be coming from everywhere, and it always makes the guests freeze and clump together, grabbing each other for reassurance.

Sometimes, while Pearl distracts them, Marina steals across the path behind them and dives into the corn on the other side of the path. Often, someone from the group hears this and sees the ruffled corn from her movement, which scares them even more. Then, Marina starts the laughter again, causing them to turn around and focus on her. That’s when Pearl sets up for her pounce.

Pearl has a penchant for the dramatics, but she’s a _scare_ _actor_ in a haunted corn maze on Halloween night so it just makes Marina laugh. Sometimes she whispers something to them and lunges at them from the corn before falling back. Other times she pokes her head out slowly, face hidden by her long pigtails, and then jerks up with a scream, teeth bared. Sometimes, she just silently steps out of the corn and watches them with a slack jawed stare; it’s only when they try to step closer to get a better look that she scares them, lurching into a hiss.

Regardless of what she does, she always gets the screams and jumps she’s looking for. They send countless people rushing back up the path this way, and every time is a rush for Marina. She actually finds herself relaxing, finds herself enjoying this, finds herself ignoring the other screams coming from other parts of the maze, finds herself becoming more comfortable amongst the darkness and the corn.

Pearl can clearly see how relaxed Marina is becoming—she’s good at reading people, Marina is realizing, considering how quickly she put together everything tonight—and that makes her bolder, makes her ham it up even further, as if she was holding back earlier because she didn’t want to freak Marina out more. She throws her body into her undead lurches, rushes forward with a blinding speed Marina’s never seen before, and giggles and screams with her whole chest; it’s almost like Marina’s watching her slowly fall victim to possession, except after every scare she looks back at Marina and grins this huge, cheery, proud grin.

“You like having help, huh?” Marina asks after they scare off another group and Pearl sends her another smile.

Pearl shrugs and moves to get into position again. “It’s nice to have someone here to watch. Most people don’t stick around to see me work, y’know? They’re a _masterpiece_, my scares.”

Marina chuckles but doesn’t answer because she needs to crouch and prepare to scare again. Pearl does have a point though. It’s a blast watching her—each scare is a little different from the last and she’s clearly having a great time. Marina imagines that if she liked this kind of thing, Pearl would provide the best scare of the night.

For the last hour, they barely talk. Too in the groove, they focus on their act, fall into a rhythm that has them reading each other without much effort. Marina laughs her giggles out in time with Pearl’s, purposefully creating a discordant sound that clashes against the ear. This creates even more uneasiness, especially when they stand close and laugh breathlessly, like two small children on the playground. One time, toward the end of the hour, Pearl pulls Marina close and hisses, “_Say this with me: Come play with us!” _They drive that group purposefully close to the dead end and when Pearl stalks out, right in front of them, and says her line, Marina says it too, from just behind her, hidden in the corner. She keeps her voice low, keeps it quiet, and focuses hard on matching Pearl’s sing-song phrasing with pitches of her own. But she purposefully keeps the notes close, creates clashing notes that set their teeth on edge.

They end Pearl’s shift like that, using their voices to do a lot of the build-up, and then Pearl throws her body out for the final blow. By the end, Marina is exhausted and sore, arms scratched up from the corn, jeans and boots dusty, sweater sleeves stretched from being shoved up above her elbows. Her hair is falling out of the intricate bun she piled it into hours ago, but she doesn’t mind. For the first time in years, she actually feels relaxed here in the corn maze.

“Great job!” Pearl cries as she claps her on the back. Her relief, another small woman dressed in a similar outfit, meets them in the clear-cut section and Pearl waves off her questions about Marina, telling her that she better focus because it’s still busy, even now, after eleven.

Pearl leads Marina away from the main path, through a thin course cut through the corn. Marina watches her feet closely because they only have the light of the moon to navigate with, and she makes sure to stay close to Pearl because, no matter how relaxed she is, she does _not_ want to get lost out here. That’d be the end of her.

Eventually, they emerge in an area that Marina’s never seen before: they’re backstage, where scare actors run around with half-complete makeup or missing costumes. Marina, eyes wide, can only stare as a zombie shambles past on a cell phone.

“Uh...” Pearl says, “you probably shouldn’t be back here. Go that way—” She points toward a tall, ramshackle wall with one door in it. Marina can see bright lights on the other side, so that must be the front. “I’ll meet you in ten, okay? Then we can get outta here. I’m _starving_!”

Pearl disappears toward one of the tents set up a couple yards away, and Marina has no choice but to follow her instructions. She steps lightly toward the door, head down to keep unwanted eyes away, and emerges back into the world beyond the maze.

The wait isn’t all that bad. Marina gets another apple cider because her throat is _dying_ now that she’s no longer out in the maze, and she nurses it quietly, watching as the line, still long, filters into the maze in small clumps. The groups are spaced out with about thirty seconds between them, which enables the scare actors to reset between scares and allows each group to feel like they have the whole maze to themselves. Marina shifts uncomfortably at the thought, happy to be out of there.

“Let’s _bounce_!” Pearl cries as she slams out of the door. Gone is the makeup, the costume, and the fangs, replaced with similarly ripped jeans to Marina’s own, and a bright pink hoodie. Her actual hair is blonde, but it’s bright, platinum, and cut into a ragged bob that _had_ to be done at home. For a second, Marina tries to picture it: Pearl in the mirror with a blunt pair of scissors, focusing hard, and the thought makes her chuckle.

“What’s so funny huh?” Pearl looks up at her, tucking some hair behind her ear, hitting Marina with the first unhindered, clear look at her face that she’s gotten.

Three things happen:

1\. She takes note of the piercings—eyebrow, lip, multiple on her ears, that definitely weren’t there before. They give her a certain edge that doesn’t match the cheery, attentive person she met in the maze, but they also are so undeniably _Pearl_ that Marina quickly writes them off.

2\. Marina feels her stomach climb its way up, using her ribs for monkey bars because Pearl is _cute—_ Pearl has a small furrow between her eyes and Marina can’t quite feel her breath in her chest because she’s so taken by the sight of it, by the sight of her face, scrunched up with worry. She’s _attractive_, and that does _not_ bode well because—

3\. Marina knows Pearl. She recognizes her, is familiar with the curve of her face and the dip of her clavicle and those lips... Oh _god_, she knows the face so well. She feels her own face heat up and one hand comes up, without permission, to cover her mouth.

“Marina?” Pearl reaches a concerned hand out but aborts, probably thinking that touching her without permission again wouldn’t be wise, not here back in the world of light, back in the world of non-vampires and mortals. Her hand falls just as quickly as it came out.

“...Hime?” Marina croaks.

Pearl doesn’t say anything for a long beat, just long enough that Marina begins to think that she got it wrong. Maybe Pearl just has a look-alike or something. Maybe—

“..._fuck_,” Pearl groans.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Halloween everyone! Be safe tonight!
> 
> Next update will be as soon as I finish it, regardless of my other update schedule. I wanna get this thing finished as soon as I can! I'll also be doing NaNoWiMo this year, so you know I'm gonna be going wild with the Pearlina content! I can't wait to write more of this ldr au!
> 
> Find me on Twitter, where I post sneak peaks, make memes, be gay, and yell about writing: [@theashemarie](https://twitter.com/theashemarie)!
> 
> Kudos and comments are cherished! ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ


	2. Diner Girls

The rideshare to the diner is quiet, like there’s death between them. Their driver, a forty-something with a playlist that’s begging for drums, tries to make small talk, but Marina and Pearl sit in silence on opposite ends of the bench seat. Eventually, the driver clams up, and Marina breathes out and fiddles with her phone, texting her friends to let them know she’s okay. Pearl, meanwhile, stares out the window, head leaned into her palm. Her breath fogs up the window and, for some reason, when Marina sees it, she finds herself fascinated by it, by that small puff of breath.

Back at the maze, Pearl requested that they not talk about how Marina recognized her—something about _past life_ and _moved on _and _don’t want anyone overhearing_—and Marina obliged her. She followed Pearl toward the parking lot, and it was only once they arrived, staring out at the sea of cars, that they realized neither one of them had a ride. “I’ll call an Uber,” Pearl muttered as she swiped her phone open. “I’ll pay since you’re getting dinner.”

Which led to them waiting fifteen minutes in complete silence, the pulsing music from the maze beating on their kidneys. Pearl sat on the ground, legs crossed, and picked at the grass. Marina, after minute five of waiting, dropped to sit next to her, sweater pulled back over her palms. Now that they were away from the maze and all those people, she was starting to get cold, and the wind blew right through her.

Pearl gathered handful after handful of grass, ripping it out and allowing the wind to take it right out of her palm. With one handful, she peeked at Marina and reached over and dropped the grass right on the broad expanse of her thigh. Marina blinked at it, remembering a youth spent in blistering summers, where she would sit under trees and pass handfuls of grass to her friends, just like that. An offering of chlorophyll and nothing more, Marina still smiles at it and feels her face heat up in a blush when Pearl smiles back at her.

Other than that, they don’t interact until they get to the diner. Marina climbs out of the car first and holds the door open for Pearl as she slides and clambers after her. The diner isn’t quite deserted, a result of the holiday and the fact it’s only half past eleven. A waitress with an undercut and a pair of striped, purple and green socks leads them to a booth, where they slip across the cracked, vinyl seats and stare at the menus with single-minded focus, neither wanting to bring up the tension thickening between them. In the middle of the table is a small, fake daisy in a plastic vase and Pearl begins to poke at it.

After they order—Marina: stuffed French toast; Pearl: a fat burger with bacon, white American cheese, and mushrooms—they stare everywhere except at one another. Marina swirls her straw around in her water glass and Pearl draws small images in the sticky, see-through tablecloth with the condensation from her glass. Every couple seconds, Marina steals glances at Pearl, trying to connect her with the girl she remembers: the face is the same, if not older, but her hair is way shorter, still the same bleached color that had to cost a fortune to maintain, especially because her eyebrows are dyed an identical shade. She’s wearing less makeup now, but that might have to do with the fact that she just scrubbed her face clean, and her posture doesn’t quite match the Hime that Marina knew. She’s slouching, fidgeting, scowling.

“All right. Fuck it,” Pearl declares—and there’s that language again. Once again, Marina feels something misfire as the expectation of her memory misaligns with the present. For a second, she second guesses herself because she _could _be wrong; this girl might _not_ be Hime Houzuki but—

“I stopped going by Hime when I was eighteen,” Pearl continues, pushing her glass aside so she can lean her elbow into the table. “So, either we went to school together or my memory _really _sucks... But I feel like I’d remember someone like you.”

She gives Marina an up-down of a look, as if analyzing her. It makes Marina shift uncomfortably. “Makes sense you don’t remember me,” Marina answers. And it does—she wasn’t exactly the most vocal fourteen-year-old, especially when faced with a girl that both excited and terrified her. “You were right—we were in school together. I was a freshman when you were a junior. I transferred out after the fall semester though.”

It’s all true. What she leaves out though: Hime Houzuki was Marina’s first and only crush, back when she was dangerously fragile and denying the weird, fiery feelings that ignited in the kiln of her stomach. Hime was a safe infatuation. A girl three years her senior who had no idea Marina existed, she represented everything that Marina desperately wanted: confidence and self-assurance. As the wealthiest kid in school, she also had this thick bubble that protected her from everything, even as she moved gracefully from class to class, flexed those soft lips into equally soft smiles, and watched the world pass her by with a patience that matched perfectly with her baby pink clothing.

Of course, Marina’s memory is idealized, she knows that much. Hime Houzuki became exactly what she needed: a safe outlet to write love letters to late at night, deep under the covers with a flashlight held between her shoulder and ear, a distant figure that was so aggressively straight that Marina never need worry about anything coming of her deep, terrifying feelings.

“Ah,” Pearl says, and Marina _has _to keep thinking of her that way. This is Pearl—not Hime, no matter how much their faces match. Pearl—not Hime—lets out a small chuckle. “I can’t believe you remember me. That was so long ago.”

It was. Five years is a long time, especially because in that time Marina’s moved at least twice and now she’s in college, studying music against her family’s wishes, with a small following for her tracks online. She’s far removed from the tiny freshman who panicked over a girl smiling at her—especially because she hasn’t experienced anything like that since. No other crushes, on anyone of any gender, and she’d pretty much just given up on that whole thing; she was focusing on school for now, after all.

But still, it wasn’t like she could just _forget_ Hime Houzuki, not after all the energy Marina had funneled into watching her from across the cafeteria. “Ah, well, you were the talk of the school. Everyone idolized you.”

Pearl scowls then, a deep, ugly thing, and sits back with her arms crossed. “Don’t remind me.” She glares down at the table, as if she could bore holes in it with the force of her glare alone. “I hated it at that stupid school. Everyone expected me to be all prim and proper... If I even so much as frowned it got back to my father and I—” She lets out a small breath and slouches a little. “Listen, I’m not that snooty little bitch anymore, okay? I—” She leans forward, as if she has to convince Marina of this, as if Marina can’t see for herself how much she’s changed. “That wasn’t me. I was trying to please my parents and I— I don’t know. I thought that if I became what they wanted everything would be easy.”

Pearl snorts at herself and reaches for her drink. “What an idiot I was.”

As Pearl sucks on her straw, gulping down soda in a way that makes her throat move in waves, Marina looks down at the table. Thinking back now and wading through the rose-colored infatuation, it really did seem like Hime was miserable in a lot of ways. She barely had any close friends, just an entourage that acted as a buffer between her and the world, and she never did any extracurriculars—just floated from class to class and then disappeared into a dark car every afternoon as soon as the bell rang. She never read, never talked about hobbies, or TV, or movies, or video games, or sports, and she never _ever_ offered information about herself.

At the time, it just added to the mystique, but now, sitting in front of Pearl after a night where she screamed her guts out and chased people through the dark for the fun of it, Marina realizes how stifled she must have been.

“I’m sorry,” Marina mumbles. Her phone vibrates and she turns it upside down on the table, hiding the screen. She owes Pearl all her attention, especially after the years she spent absentmindedly thinking about her. “I... I didn’t realize you were so miserable. I—”

“What you apologizin’ for? Nothing you coulda done as a puny little freshman. I was so wrapped up in my own drama... It’s probably better you left.” She laughs at herself again, spinning her straw to create a small cyclone. “You didn’t get to see the Great Rebellion of Senior Year.” She says it with such gravitas that it begs the capitals and grins at Marina. “You ever see a young socialite completely lose it in the middle of English class? I mean, we were reading _The Great Gatsby_ and I just _lost _it—crying everywhere, _snot_. I couldn’t _breathe_. I cut my own hair that night. Mom had a fit, but what you gonna do? It’s how moms are. Dad though...” She lets out a low whistle.

“But enough about me.” Pearl sits back again. “I’m just glad we didn’t like... Glad I didn’t meet you in some other way. High school is safe. But, you can forget all that Hime crap. I’m Pearl now. And you’re Marina. Who are you now, Marina?”

“I...” Marina isn’t prepared for this. It’s not like she _expected_ to be faced with a laidback, friendly, if not a little rough version of her past crush. “I’m... Uh, I’m in college...”

“Still figuring it out, huh?” Pearl grins and Marina swears that she feels a foot nudge against hers. It’s a respectful, encouraging nudge. “Me too.”

“Yeah...”

Pearl smiles at her again, but this time it’s soft. Marina recognizes this smile because she’s seen it before, countless times. But unlike the ones from her past, it’s genuine and reaches all the way up her cheeks. “Anyway, _where_ did you learn to punch— Oh, food’s coming! Thank _god._ My stomach’s trying to eat its way out.”

Their server reappears, and they don’t talk again until the food is done.

+++

While they eat, Marina tries to focus on her food. Of course, she fails massively, because this has been one of the strangest nights of her life and because Pearl is right there, noshing on her burger like it’s the first thing she’s eaten in years. Just this morning Marina woke up on her friend’s couch, intent on making this the least traumatizing Halloween of her life, and here she is now—sitting across from her former crush at a diner at midnight because she punched said crush in the nose in the middle of a haunted corn maze. Oh, and she actually helped said crush scare the living hell out of hundreds of people.

It's just that, when she thought about Hime Houzuki (usually late at night, staring up at her dark ceiling while her sister snored so loudly next door; Marina wouldn’t be able to sleep if she wanted to), she never imagined her like _this_. Pierced like a pin cushion, hair jagged from blunt scissors, ripped jeans and overly large hoodie (still pink, thank god; at least that hasn’t changed), slouching and stuffing food into her face like a caveman. When she tried to imagine Hime Houzuki Today (a passing thought experiment), she always imagined her lounging near a pool, or standing at a podium making a grand speech, or on a horse. She never imagined... _this._

But here she is. She chews with her mouth closed, but she cranes her jaw open wide to fit the whole burger in, and, when she stuffs fries in, she barely chews before swallowing. She’s a far cry from the pristine princess that Marina remembers—but then, she’d never seen Hime eat before. She always spent her lunch talking with friends, or her boyfriend-of-the-week, tossing her long blonde hair over her shoulder in a way that made it look incredibly soft.

The lesson here, of course, is to not idolize people. Marina isn’t dense. She’s put that together. But it’s hard to reconcile her years of memory training with the reality in front of her. Pearl is a rough, rowdy woman, nothing like the girl she used to be— But, isn’t Marina the same? She’s a far cry from the obedient little girl her father worried over. Hell, she hasn’t seen her dad in six months, and she’s studying something her father directly objects too. He wants her to focus on computer science, but her heart isn’t in it. Sure, she likes tinkering and hacking (legally, as far as her dad is concerned), but music is where her passions have angled her. Putting together a track, creating synths on her keyboard, stitching it all together... That’s a lot like hacking—hacking the human ear, the beat of instruments, the emotions that live in the body.

So, where does that leave her? As she watches Pearl eat, Pearl feels her eyes and looks up. She wipes her face surreptitiously with her napkin when she sees Marina watching and then nudges her plate toward Marina, offering her a fry.

Marina, body moved by some unknown force, plucks one up and chews through it, enjoying the crunch. Pearl beams at her and focuses back on her food, clearly too hungry to be distracted for long.

In that moment, Marina lets go of the past. She lets go of the memories, of the thought experiments, of the expectations, and she takes Pearl in fully. No more individual parts—just Pearl, in all her rough glory.

She sees Pearl as a stranger, not as the girl of her past. And that helps.

It also... complicates things. Because, as previously mentioned, Pearl is _cute_— And Marina’s stomach is doing that twisty thing that it hasn’t done in years, especially when Pearl looks up again and smiles around her burger again.

Marina, completely convinced that she wasn’t like that, finds things complicating, like the crunch of glass as a baseball sails through the neighbor’s window. She finds herself with the baseball bat, watching the trajectory of the ball, feeling her guts melting together and twisting like saltwater taffy, and she feels the shatter in her teeth.

She has two choices now: run before the neighbors catch her or stand tall and face the consequences.

+++

Marina puts all that away. That’s something for her journal, for three in the morning, for a mumbled rush into her sister’s ear when she’s so exhausted she’s drunk with it. This small flame of _something_, of feelings, of interest, of terror, will live inside her like the Olympic torch, weak but still lit, until she can decide what to do with it. For now, she has other things to deal with.

Once they’ve eaten their fill and Marina’s asked for a to-go box, they peruse the desserts. Pearl taps her finger on the menu in beat to the song from the radio on the counter and Marina, distracted by it, watches her, watches as she mouths the words to the song while reading the menu, a skill that Marina’s seen only a few people master. That reminds her of the maze, of Pearl’s incredible voice, of the questions that she felt worm up, half-formed, to hide in the cervices of her skull.

“Do you sing?” Marina blurts, which makes Pearl glance up.

“Yeah... How’d you...”

“I do too,” Marina admits. She places her menu down, mostly because she just had what amounted to dessert for her meal. “I’m studying music in school... Your voice is very impressive.”

“Heh, thanks. I’m in a band, but you probably wouldn’t like it... It’s not exactly academic.”

Marina knows a tease when she hears one and she leans forward, placing her chin in her hands. “My music isn’t _exactly academic_ either. I’m a vocal major but I make tracks on the side. You ever hear of Soundcloud? YouTube?”

“Yeah?” Pearl leans close too, elbows on the table. “What’s your username? I’ll look you up.”

Marina, suddenly feeling very silly, hesitates. Pearl sees it and backs off, which brings Marina so much relief it deflates her.

“Well, if you wanna look us up, my band is called The Great Pacific Garbage Patch. It’s punk. If you use headphones, turn the volume down.”

Marina makes a mental note of that, nods, and leans back again. “I’ll give it a listen. You really getting dessert? Aren’t you full?”

“Listen—” Pearl pins her with a strong pointer finger. “My stomach is a _black hole_.”

Marina laughs and ignores her phone’s vibrating. “Well, I can’t blame you. All that scaring— How’d you end up doing that, anyway?”

Pearl shrugs and looks back at the menu. “Gotta make rent somehow, right?”

That strikes Marina right between the eyes, because as hard as she’s trying to remove Pearl from her past as Hime, she can’t do it completely. “But...” she hears her voice say, without permission, “what about your parents?”

Pearl shrugs again and snaps the small menu closed. “I see them on Sundays. Dad funnels money into my account every two weeks—calls it my _allowance_—because it makes him feel like he’s fulfilling his righteous fatherly duties. I try not to touch it unless I have to. Mom tells me to treat it like a college fund.” Pearl snorts, crossing her arms over her chest again. “As if I’m ever going back...”

“I’m sorry,” Marina says, and she means it. She knows what it’s like to feel disconnected from your parents, even if you still talk regularly. It’s all an act of cordiality, of a shared past and genes that don’t really amount to much in the present. “I haven’t seen my father in six months... We don’t get along.”

Pearl grimaces in sympathy. “Sucks. To all the girls with distant fathers.” She raises her empty glass in a small toast and throws back a piece of ice.

Marina matches her toast and sips carefully at the water pooled at the bottom.

In the end, Pearl orders a slice of pumpkin pie with a “_tis the season_,” and the server brings two forks, so they split it. As they munch, they talk about safe things, like the giant hurricane in the Atlantic or any dogs that they see pass the window. It feels natural, to talk like this, like they’re two old friends, and they speak with ease, without a smidge of awkwardness. It’s so easy that Marina doesn’t notice that the pie is almost gone until Pearl offers her the last bite.

She pushes it back toward her, claiming to be full, and Pearl happily scoops it up. Satisfied, she leans back and lets out a small burp. Then, she covers her mouth, wide-eyed, and squeaks out a fast and embarrassed _“excuse me!” _

Something about that gets Marina good and she laughs right in Pearl’s face. Here they are, spilling their guts and eating messily, after a night that began with a punch, and Pearl is _apologizing_ and embarrassed for burping after a giant meal. Marina laughs, loud and long, and Pearl watches her with an unreadable, soft expression, as if she’s known Marina for years and is pleased to see her laughing.

When the check comes, Pearl slaps her credit card into the tray before Marina can. “Hey—” Marina begins.

“Let Pop Houzuki pay,” Pearl says, smiling widely. She taps the credit card, the name bright white against the black background—_Hime Houzuki_. “It’s the least he can do, after his daughter basically kidnapped you.”

Marina laughs again. “If I remember correctly, I physically assaulted you while you were doing your job.”

“Mmmm nope!” Pearl shoots back. “You were protecting yourself from me, the kidnapper, and then I dragged you into the corn. You stayed because you developed Stockholm Syndrome. Have you ever seen _Beauty and the Beast_? It’s like that.”

“That movie is _not_ about Stockholm Syndrome. Stop watching YouTube think pieces.”

“Oh, you’re a smarty huh! Got that big brain because you go to college! Excuse me, some of us only _have _YouTube. The internet is my teacher.”

Marina, feeling warm and impossibly full, can’t feel her face because of how wide she’s been smiling. “Fine, fine. If I let you pay, will you _please_—”

“Done.” Pearl grabs up the check and bounces to her feet. “Let’s blow this place.”

Marina follows her and watches over her shoulder as she pays at the counter. As she inserts her card into the chip reader, Marina looks away to avoid seeing any sensitive information, and when she’s done they make their way out together.

Outside, they linger near the door. It’s colder now and the streets are deserted. Marina pulls her phone out to arrange a ride, hoping that at least one of her friends is still awake.

“Hey...” Pearl’s hand comes up and touches Marina’s arm briefly. “Listen... I had... _so _much fun tonight and I— I’d like to hang out again...”

Marina feels that small fire in her stomach flare a little, growing without permission. “I’d love to,” she says.

Pearl’s face lights up like Marina just told her Christmas was tomorrow. “Great! Um, can I... Here.” She shoves her phone into Marina’s surprised hands, forcing her to juggle two phones for a second, until Pearl wrestles Marina’s from her. She doesn’t look at it, just holds it.

When Marina finally manages to get her hand around Pearl’s phone, she finds it open to a new contact listing. She quickly taps in her number and her name, last name and all, and hands it back.

Pearl takes it easily and holds Marina’s out. “Nah uh,” Marina says, and pushes it back. “Return the favor.”

Pearl beams again, and Marina wonders if that’s normal, or if it’s just because today has been so weird (and so special). As she navigates to the contact book and initiates the new contact, Marina watches her fingers, wonders if she knows how to play guitar, if those rings are real silver, if she can spin a drumstick. “There,” Pearl says, and then holds the phone up to snap a quick selfie for the contact photo—that same beam, eyes closed, one hand held up in a peace sign just below her cheek.

“Mind if I...?” Pearl holds her own phone up once Marina’s accepted hers back. Marina nods easily and poses for a similar shot, beaming with her eyes closed, both hands up in identical peace signs. Pearl grins softly as she looks at it. “Perfect.”

Marina’s phone vibrates and she checks it quickly. It’s her friend, only five minutes away.

“So, next weekend then?” Pearl asks. “I’m free Saturday and—”

_Oh no... _That’s exactly when Marina crashes right back to earth. She doesn’t _live_ here. She’d completely forgotten... For the past few hours, she’d been so caught up in memories that she’d been living in a world where she still lives in this town.

“Uh,” Marina says, flabbergasted at herself. “I, uh... I don’t live here. I... I forgot.”

“Oh? Girl, how’d you _forget_—” Pearl quickly composes herself and seems to decide to take it in stride. “Okay, that’s no problem! How far do you live?”

“Three hours.”

“Pssh, that’s nothing! Totally doable on the weekends—”

“By plane.”

“_Oh_...”

“I’m— I’m _so _sorry, Pearl. I...”

Pearl looks crushed. Emotions completely painted across her face (probably from the shock of it), she looks like someone just told her the love of her life is cheating on her. “No, it’s— It’s fine!” She doesn’t sound fine. In fact, she sounds like she’s on the verge of tears. “I shoulda figured. You said you transferred away _and_ that you were in college.”

“We can still be friends!” Marina rushes out, grabbing Pearl’s arm in a tight grip. “I visit on most school holidays because my grandparents still live here! And I always come back for Halloween!”

Pearl stares at the hand on her arm and Marina sees something shift in her face. “Yeah... Yeah, we can still be friends! We’re gonna be the best fuckin’ friends!”

A pair of headlights pins them to the wall and Marina easily recognizes her friend’s car. “That’s my ride,” she says, and steps away, letting go of Pearl’s arm. She rubs the back of her head. “I’ll, uh... I’ll see you around, okay?”

“When are you flying out?”

“Tomorrow afternoon... Well, I guess today. Friday.”

Pearl lets out a small scoff. “Of course. Listen... Will you be here for the new year?”

“No... I’ll get here on the second, for a week.”

“Okay... January third... Meet here. Until then...” Pearl holds up her phone. “I’ll text you.”

Marina smiles and nods. “Got it. Also, Pearl... I really am sorry for punching you.”

The car’s horn honks, impatient, and Marina jumps. She sends Pearl an apologetic smile and turns to climb into the car.

As she’s pulling the door closed, she hears Pearl call after her: “Hey, Reena! I’m _so _glad you punched me!”

+++

As they drive away, her friend reaches forward and turns the radio down. “Was that... _Hime Houzuki_?”

“Yeah,” Marina answers, distracted because she’s fiddling with her phone, trying to decide how soon she can text without seeming too desperate. “She goes by Pearl now,” she adds as an afterthought.

“Wow, she’s _different_. Bet her dad _hates_ it—”

Marina’s phone vibrates and she doesn’t hear the rest. On screen, there’s a new message from her newest contact—_Pearl Houzuki_. It’s a simple message, but it still sends Marina’s heart into a happy stuttering:

_hey! :)_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thus ends part one of Holidays Without You. If this part left you with more questions than answers, that was intentional. There will be more stories in this little series, so I hope you'll join me for the adventure! 
> 
> (A note: Pearl and Marina are still three years apart in age. The way their birthdays shook out put them two years apart in school, but they still have three years between them.) 
> 
> This is a bittersweet feeling for me, because I wrote and posted this story so quickly. I didn't really get a chance to sit on it and appreciate it, but I also had so much fun writing it, with all the little details and laying the groundwork for the future! I hope you enjoyed it just as much! 
> 
> If you would like, please follow me on Twitter for writing updates and silly tweets: [@theashemarie](https://twitter.com/theashemarie)!
> 
> Thank you to everyone who left comments and kudos! I really appreciate all the time you spend on my work and y'all really motivate me to write more! I love all of you! 
> 
> That said, comments and kudos are cherished! See you soon!


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